The stunning Kafue National Park, one of Zambia’s most important wildlife, tourism, and wilderness areas, and Kafue’s surrounding wildlife and community areas patrolled by the Kaindu Scouts, and Misamba Community where income from keeping land under wildlife has brought income benefitting the community and school.
18 Kaindu Community Scouts patrol 15,000ha/40,000-acres of pristine Zambian bush adjacent to Kafue National Park, land that the local community now owns and from which it can derive full benefits. That could be poaching for meat to sell in the capital. It could be logging trees for timber or charcoal. Instead, in meetings and discussions across all the villages over recent years, it was decided to use the land to earn money from tourists.
Assignment in Zambia for The Nature Conservancy who have helped with tents and uniforms for the scouts, and with pointers how to get a community-based organisation off the ground. The programme is now up and running. So far 48 poachers have been arrested, and tourist money has been pumped into schools, clinics, and roads
